1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to pharmaceutical preparations of etoposide, i.e. 4'-demethylepipodophillotoxin-9-(4,6-O-ethylidene-.beta.-D-glucopyranoside ) which is believed to be a promising antitumoral agent.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Etoposide is a drug difficultly soluble in water. As solutions, there has been known an injection prepared by dissolving 100 mg of the etoposide in a mixture of 150 mg of benzyl alcohol and 3,250 mg of polyethylene glycol 300, and filling the resulting solution in an ampul of 5 ml in volume (Rote List, 85046 B, 1981).
Because of its bulkiness, however, the etoposide solution is difficultly made into an encapsulated preparation containing the same amount of the drug as that of the injection. To overcome the difficulty, the present inventors had attempted to reduce the amount of the solvent. It was found, however, that the preparation with reduced amount of solvent presents a problem of insufficient absorbability when it is orally administered to a living body. The reason for this is presumably such that upon being added to water this preparation soon separates out etoposide crystals and the same phenomenon would take place in the living body, precipitating the difficultly absorbable crystals.